


The Wind Is Never Weary

by lirin



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: 7 BBY, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, Childhood, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29375019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: Whenever the Emperor came to visit Papa and to see the progress on the weapon, he always brought a little girl with him, a few years younger than Jyn.
Relationships: Jyn Erso & Mara Jade
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	The Wind Is Never Weary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



Whenever the Emperor came to visit Papa and to see the progress on the weapon, he always brought a little girl with him, a few years younger than Jyn.

It was one of Jyn's favorite times of the year, second only to her birthday (on which Papa was almost always able to find a way to be excused from work for at least the afternoon). There were no other children on Eadu, so Mara's visits were her only chance to play with someone other than droids.

This most recent visit came only a few days after the sixth anniversary of Mama's death, and so Jyn was particularly glad of the company. Papa was always so sad when he thought about Mama. Jyn was sad too, but she figured the best thing to do about that was not to think about Mama too much. "Do you want to go play outside the compound with me?" Jyn asked Mara. She wasn't allowed outside alone, but she figured as long as Mara was here, then she wasn't alone.

Mara shrugged. She was much quieter this visit than she had been when she'd been here before. She'd always been in just as much of a hurry as Jyn was to get away from the adults and their scary-but-boring talk, but this time she stared back towards where the Emperor and Director Krennic and Governor Tarkin and Papa were all standing, looking at some blueprints.

"Come on," Jyn said. "If we stay in here they'll make us be quiet."

Mara shrugged again, and followed her towards the door to the rocky outside.

The weather was just about as good as it ever was: it was still too cloudy and dark to see very far without their glowrods, but it wasn't raining for the moment, and any time on Eadu that it wasn't raining was a good time. Jyn clipped her glowrod onto the breast pocket of her jumpsuit so that she had both hands free to keep her balance. "What do you want to do today? We can go look at the rainpools to the north; I saw some creatures in them the other day that were all sorts of colors. I think they were frogs, or maybe salamanders. Or there's some fun rocks to the northwest that are small enough that I can climb them. You're not much smaller than me and you've had a lot more training in those kinds of things, right? So you ought to be able to climb them too."

Mara pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders. "I don't feel like playing," she said. "Aren't we too old to play? My teachers say playing is for children."

"We still _are_ children," Jyn said, leading the way along the narrow cavern that they had stepped out into. They wouldn't have to decide where they were going until they reached the end of it. "I'm fourteen, and you're, I don't know, ten or eleven?"

"I don't know for sure either," Mara said. "I think I'm ten."

"Ten's a child," Jyn said, hopping over a puddle. "I mean, we have to do lessons and all, not like _really_ little kids, but we don't have to do the stuff that the adults do."

"I killed a man last week," Mara said. "A human man. The Emperor told me to."

"Oh," Jyn said. She put her hands in her pockets and stared at the closest puddle.

"So I think that means I'm not a child anymore."

Jyn winced. Usually she tried to pretend that she didn't know that all the adults here were working on building scary things. Papa told them that Jyn didn't need to know about any of that. Papa kept Jyn safe.

(Papa probably did things that he didn't want to do, to keep Jyn safe. That was why they'd brought her along even though they'd killed Mama, wasn't it? So that they would have a hostage and Papa would have to do what they wanted.)

But Jyn didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about her sort-of best friend (her only friend) killing people.

(Jyn wondered if Papa had ever killed anyone. He was an adult, and all the other adults that Jyn knew had killed people.)

But she didn't want to think about that either. "I'm sorry you had to kill somebody." She wasn't sure if it was the right thing to say. She'd never had a reason to say it to anybody before.

"I'm sorry, too," Mara said. "But the Emperor said that he hurt people, so maybe it was good? But I didn't want to kill him. He cried."

Jyn scuffed her boots on the edge of the closest puddle. "It doesn't mean you can't still be a kid for today," she said. "The Emperor and the others didn't tell you that you had to stay inside with them, did they? So it's okay for you to be out here with me, and we can play."

Mara shrugged again, and nodded.

"So do you want to go look at the rainpools or would you rather see how high we can climb?"

"I bet I can climb higher than you can even though I'm smaller," Mara said, and smiled just a little bit.

Jyn was pretty sure that the smile was all pretend, but she didn't say so. "I bet you can't," she said instead. "Come on."

She broke into a run, down the cavern and then turning north. Mara's footsteps pounded behind her, and she did her best to forget about anything but the land and the clouds and her friend and the rocks they were about to climb.

(It didn't entirely work, but for her friend's sake, she tried anyway.)


End file.
